


My Mechanical Angel

by TheStoryteller13



Series: AUgust Writing Challenge [6]
Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: AU-gust 2020, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, F/F, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:09:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25906372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStoryteller13/pseuds/TheStoryteller13
Summary: Sometimes she sees a clockwork heart sitting on a table. Sometimes she watches herself scream and cry and fight against strong arms that tug her backward out of a room. A smattering of blonde hair. The flash of blue eyes. Sometimes she sees scenes of running through city streets with a woman whose face Hope can’t see. Sometimes they’re climbing along rooftops. Other times she sees magic fizzing through the air. Sometimes she sees an explosion of some kind. The aftermath of it.Tonight she sees a pale hand hanging off of a table. The blonde's— though Hope still can’t see her face. She gets bits and pieces of medical tools on the table.“Hope.” She hears again. “I need you. Please.”
Relationships: Hope Mikaelson/Lizzie Saltzman
Series: AUgust Writing Challenge [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859824
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33





	My Mechanical Angel

“Of course, I would never pass up on an opportunity to get paid, but I have to ask: you’re doing all of this because of a few dreams you’ve had?” Mr. Hawkin’s tilts his head curiously.

Hope nods in the lamp light and pushes a hand through her auburn hair. The rain pounds against the window and Hope finds it both comforting and awful— it would be so easy to miss the sound of feet coming to the door. Hope shakes the fear from her mind and focuses back on the situation at hand. 

Kaleb Hawkins is a hard man to find, but his reputation as a sell-sword reached even her ears. The home her search has taken her to sits on the outskirts of a small, unsuspicious town. It’s two stories and the inside is fairly bare, he doesn’t seem to have much need for frivolous decoration or items that wouldn’t serve a purpose. Hope notes that there’s quite a large number of books on three very large bookshelves on one side of the room, which confuses her until a second man walks down the stairs. He immediately strikes Hope as the opposite of Kaleb; he looks more like the type that would be found reading rather than fighting.

Hope eyes him warily, then turns her attention back to Kaleb. “I know it sounds strange, but I think they’re more than dreams. They feel like memories.” 

Kaleb shrugs. “If you want to chase a fairy tale, who am I to stop you?”

“So you’ll help me?” Hope asks, leaning forward now. 

“You’ve got the gold.” Kaleb nods. Then he gestures towards the other man, “This is my associate, Milton Greasley. I hope you don’t mind him coming along.”

Hope sizes Milton up with narrowed eyes. “Can he fight?” 

“I can hold my own.” He nods. “And it’s MG, not Milton.” 

Hope smiles. “Alright. Let’s get going then.” 

#

 _“Hope_.” 

It always starts out the same: if she was dreaming beforehand, whatever those images were are replaced with darkness. If she wasn’t, she suddenly becomes aware of the darkness. Either way she sits in it for a moment, and then she hears the voice ripple through her. For a moment everything is quiet. And then the images start. 

These change from night to night. Sometimes she sees a clockwork heart sitting on a table. Sometimes she watches herself scream and cry and fight against strong arms that tug her backward out of a room. A smattering of blonde hair. The flash of blue eyes. Sometimes she sees scenes of running through city streets with a woman whose face Hope can’t see. Sometimes they’re climbing along rooftops. Other times she sees magic fizzing through the air. Sometimes she sees an explosion of some kind. The aftermath of it. 

Tonight she sees a pale hand hanging off of a table. The blonde's— though Hope still can’t see her face. She gets bits and pieces of medical tools on the table. 

_“Hope.”_ She hears again. _“I need you. Please.”_

Hope wakes up gasping. Like every time she’s had these dreams. Though this time she’s in a tent with Kaleb and MG and she wakes them up as well. It’s still raining outside and the drops patter against the leather tent. They’d traveled for a day through the rain and made camp that night. 

MG is by her side in an instant, far too fast to be normal, but Hope is too distracted by Kaleb grabbing his sword and looking around frantically to really clock it. 

“It’s alright.” Hope says as she calms down. “I was just having a nightmare.” 

Kaleb sheaths his sword. 

“Do you have a lot of nightmares like that?” MG sits cross-legged beside her. 

“Recently, yeah. It's the same dreams I was telling you about.” Hope looks to Kaleb. “This woman is out there somewhere, calling to me. I think she’s hurt or. . . In danger somehow.” 

“We’ll find her.” MG says. When Hope looks into his eyes, she can see the goodness there. Hope’s met a lot of people, and with her family history she knows when someone doesn’t have good intentions. 

“Promise.” Kaleb confirms, and Hope can see the same goodness in his eyes, too. 

#

Once they make it back to a main city, they find a train and settle in. 

“Do you even know where we’re going?” Kaleb asks, leaning against the door frame of her cabin. 

Hope shakes her head. “A big city. . . somewhere. I’ll know it when we find it.” 

“Have you tried looking around in your dreams to see where you were?” MG pokes his head in. 

“I don’t usually have much control over the dreams.” Hope tells him. 

He opens his mouth to say something, but Kaleb puts a hand on his shoulder, and he stops himself. Hope narrows her eyes but doesn’t ask. They’re not friends; they can keep their secrets to themselves. 

“I can try the next time I have a dream.” Hope offers. 

The train shakes beneath them. Kaleb drums his fingers against the frame and nods. “Alright then. We’ll follow your lead.” 

It happens during dinner. 

They’re having a warm meal and good conversation when someone bumps into her. She looks behind her at the boy with floppy dark hair. He smiles kindly at her and offers an apology, then continues to move past her to leave the train car. Hope thinks nothing of it, until she feels something's off. She feels at her neck for her necklace, the heart shaped one made of clockwork gears. She wears it at all times along with the one of her family crest, which is thankfully still around her neck. 

Panic hits her. Hope glances around to find the guy who bumped into her but she doesn’t see him. She doesn’t think before getting up to follow in the direction he was heading. 

“Hope!” MG calls after her. 

“That man stole my necklace!” Hope shouts back, not stopping. 

Fortunately for her, she spots him a couple cars in. He spots her coming for him and immediately bolts, grabbing another boy on the way. The two of them speed off, looking scared, and Hope smirks. She doesn’t want to attract any attention to herself, so she doesn’t use any magic, but she doesn’t need it anyway. She runs through the cars with determination and others get out of her way quickly. 

Still, they are fast, and they make it to the last train before she does. Which means that they get to jump off the end of the train before she can stop them. Standing on the platform, Hope takes her gun out of its holster on her thigh and shoots two shots. She doesn’t normally miss, but she can’t tell if she hit either of them. If she did, they don’t show signs of being hit. The train carries her further and further from them and the thieves disappear into the sunset. 

When she makes it back to Kaleb and MG, she notices the spots of red on MG’s white cuff, and Kaleb is wiping his lips with a handkerchief. Hope tucks the information into the back of her head and doesn’t ask about it. 

“Well?” Kaleb asks. 

She shakes her head. “Got away.” 

“Was it an expensive necklace?” MG asks. 

“It was sentimental.” Hope says, though she leaves out that she doesn’t know where she got it. She suspects it has something to do with the dreams she’s been having. She’d found it back at home in one of her drawers and she hasn’t taken it off since. Shortly after she found it the dreams started. 

“I’m sorry.” MG says. 

“Yeah.” Hope waves him off. “I’m going to head to bed now.” 

She lays in the bed in her cabin and listens to the sound of the train chugging along beneath her. Slowly, the sounds lull her to sleep. When she dreams this time the images are much the same, so she tries to look around for a window or an address on a slip of paper. She can’t control where she looks in the dream no matter how hard she tries. 

The next morning she goes to the boy’s cabin. Kaleb wears silk pajamas and MG is in a fluffy dark blue robe. 

“Everything okay?” Kaleb stretches out his arms. 

Hope steps inside and closes the door. “I need one of you to help me access my dreams.” 

Kaleb narrows his eyes. “How do you mean?” 

“You’re vampires.” Hope states. 

MG glances worriedly at Kaleb, who opens his mouth to argue. Hope holds up a hand. “You don’t have to fight with me about it.” 

She whispers a word and rainbow-colored sparks fly through the air briefly. 

“You’re a witch.” MG whispers with a smile. 

“She’s a Mikaelson.” Kaleb says. “That family’s got all sorts of weird rumors about them.” 

“That’s why I don’t draw attention to myself.” Hope confirms. 

“What do you need?” MG asks, totally ready to help. 

“Get into my head. Help me access those memories I keep dreaming about. I should be able to look around with your help.” she explains. 

MG nods. “I can do that.” 

“Be careful.” Kaleb says. 

“Of course.” MG winks.

Ten minutes later they’re all dressed and settled in the boy’s cabin. Hope sits on one of the beds, MG sitting behind her. He places his hands on either side of her head and Hope closes her eyes, allowing him to get inside her head. 

It doesn’t take very long before she’s standing in the room with the table that the blonde girl lays on. She’s never gotten the chance to really look around the space before, but now she’s there when everything is stilled. It’s an office of some sort. There are gears and clockwork on the walls and tables. Books about medicine lie open. The blonde on the table is wearing a light blue dress, her hair splayed out. Hope still can’t see her face, even here. She walks to the table, reaches out to the woman, something sad in her opens up. Who was this woman to her? Why has she forgotten? 

Hope shakes herself and looks around at the paperwork on the tables for an address. And when she finds nothing, she goes to the window to see if she recognizes anything. As soon as she looks out, she knows exactly where she is. 

MG pulls out of her mind and Hope opens her eyes wide. 

“I know where she is.” 

#

There is a town not too far from the city she was born in that houses a famous sell-sword and the woman he resides with. They have a knack for fixing problems, he with his sword, her with her strange knowledge and connections. She had once had a love affair with Hope’s father before he found Hope’s mother. But Hope doesn’t know what they would have to do with the blonde woman. They have a daughter, Josie, who is wicked smart and always taking to the skies in air balloons to travel and study one oddity or another. But she has brown hair. 

Hope doesn’t have all the answers, but at least she knows where she’s going now. 

Their train ride there doesn’t take too long. Once they enter the town Hope pulls her hood over her head and uses the rest of her long jacket to hide her gun. Her own family might be respected in her home, but rumors spread elsewhere. And a place where a sell-sword has time to share his stories is a place where her father’s name is not spoken about in a good light. Hope would rather get in and get out without entangling with any of the local law enforcement. 

The town is fairly small, so finding the building where the Saltzman’s reside is easy enough. The three of them wait until nightfall before they make their move, staying out of the lamplight. There are lights on in the building, so they wait until those go out before they make their move. 

Hope quickly whispers a spell to unlock the back door and the three of them slip through silently. Inside the wooden structure looks like a normal home. Lamps that are no longer burning, clocks that are ticking. Steam powered things scattered around. Hope steps lightly and makes her way upstairs. The wood creaks beneath her feet on one of the stairs and it sounds thunderous in the quiet home. Hope remains calm and pauses for a moment, then continues up the stairs. Kaleb and MG behind her avoid the stair that creaked. 

On the second floor Hope turns down one hallway and looks for a room with an open door. To her luck, the one to the office is cracked open a sliver, and Hope toes it the rest of the way open. It’s pitch black in the room, the moonlight only coming through one small window. The rest are covered by the curtains. Hope takes one of the lanterns off the desk and lights it with a spell. 

With the light she can see she’s in the office of her dreams. Her heart beats loudly in her ears. She doesn’t notice what Kaleb and MG are doing— her world has narrowed down to her and the blonde woman across the room. 

She’s _real_. 

Hope is in front of her before she notices she’s even moving. The blond is still wearing the blue dress from her dreams, but she’s propped up against a wall now, held up by a metal bar around her stomach. Her head leans slightly to the left against a small metal block embedded in the wall. She seems to be in some sort of slumber, but where it’s medically induced or magical, Hope doesn’t know. 

She reaches up to touch the woman’s cheek. A tear falls from Hope’s eye, though she isn’t sure why. Hope’s pinky finger is on the woman’s neck and she can feel a faint beating there. She moves her hand down over the woman’s heart. It feels different. Off. When Hope focuses and listens, she can hear the faint ticking of a clock. 

_“Lizzie.”_ She gasps, suddenly knowing that’s her name. 

“You need to leave.” Comes a woman’s voice from behind her. 

Hope whips around, pulling the gun out of its holster as she does. She has it pointed at a brunette she recognizes. Josie. Kaleb has his sword pointed her direction as well. 

“Not until you answer my questions.” Hope says. 

Josie raises her eyebrows. She holds out a hand and a fireball appears in it. “I’m not discussing anything with you. Get out.” 

“What’s wrong with her?” Hope jerks her head back toward Lizzie. “Is she under a spell? Is she hurt?” 

“You don’t even know why you came here, do you?” She asks. She looks fascinated for a moment, and then she shakes the look from her face. “I’m sure my father would be _thrilled_ to hear that there’s a Mikaelson in his house, but I don’t think you’d want to meet him.” 

Hope doesn’t know what to do. She needs more information. She doesn’t have the ability to break Lizzie out now, she’s lost the element of surprise. And she doesn’t want to kill Josie or start a fight with her father. 

“I can cut her down right now.” Kaleb says. 

Josie’s eyes flash as she looks at him. “You could _try_.” 

“We’ll leave.” Hope puts her gun away and holds her hands up. “Come on.” 

She walks toward the door slowly, Kaleb and MG following her. Josie follows them until they’re out of her house and then she watches them from the window until they’re out of sight. 

“What the hell was that?” Kaleb asks when they’re far away. 

“I didn’t want to start a fight.” Hope tells him. 

“Then why did you hire me?” 

“Because I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Now I do. We’ll come back later to get the girl.” Hope decides. 

“Who was she?” MG asks. “Was that the girl from your dreams?” 

Hope nods. “Her name is Lizzie.” 

“You’re going to rescue her?” MG smiles, his eyes lighting up. 

“Yes. And you’re going to help me.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, there will be a part two to this. <3


End file.
